Tag Archive for: Lung Cancer Treatments

What Steps Can BIPOC Lung Cancer Patients Take to Guard Against Care Disparities?

What Steps Can BIPOC Lung Cancer Patients Take to Guard Against Care Disparities? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

How can BIPOC lung cancer patients or other underrepresented  patients help guard against care disparities? Expert Dr. Lecia Sequist shares advice for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients to help ensure they receive optimal treatment with the most advanced treatments available.

Dr. Sequist is program director of Cancer Early Detection & Diagnostics at Massachusetts General Hospital and also The Landry Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

[ACT]IVATION TIP:

“You don’t have to ask permission to get a second opinion, you can just make an appointment with a different oncologist or go to an oncologist if you haven’t seen one before. Because lung cancer is changing and treatments are more successful, and we all have to do more as a community to make sure that those treatments are offered to everyone.”

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Related Resources:

What Are the Noted Disparities in Lung Cancer Screening and Access

What Are the Noted Disparities in Lung Cancer Screening and Access?

Expert Advice for Creating an Optimized Lung Cancer Treatment Plan

Expert Advice for Creating an Optimized Lung Cancer Treatment Plan

Tumor Genetics vs. Family Genetics in Lung Cancer: What is the Difference

Tumor Genetics vs. Family Genetics in Lung Cancer: What is the Difference


Transcript:

Lisa Hatfield:

So, Dr. Sequist, we know that there are significant disparities in the treatment and the outcomes of minority patients who have non-small cell lung cancer. How can patients avoid these discrepancies in the timeliness of their diagnosis, because that can be an important factor in their outcome?

Dr. Lecia Sequist:

Yeah. I think lung cancer has changed a lot, but in the last 10 years, and there are better treatments than there used to be, and there’s a lot more treatments than there used to be, but not all doctors are aware of these new developments. And I think some doctors still have a kind of an old-fashioned nihilistic view about lung cancer, which can be very negative, which is that lung cancer can’t be treated effectively and patients are just going to do very poorly. That’s not true anymore. It may have been true 20, 30 years ago, unfortunately. But with treatments today, lung cancer patients can live longer, be cured more often and have better quality of life than with some of the older treatments.

And I think in the ideal world, the responsibility really should be on the physicians to make sure that they’re offering those treatments to patients, but in the real world, that doesn’t always happen. And so I think something that patients can do to empower themselves is also to ask their physicians if there’s anything else that can be done or if they should see a second opinion. If you’re feeling like your doctor is not offering you really many options or is being kind of nihilistic, having a very negative picture of what might happen to you with your cancer, then I would just get a second opinion. You don’t have to ask permission to get a second opinion, you can just make an appointment with a different oncologist or go to an oncologist if you haven’t seen one before. Because lung cancer is changing and treatments are more successful, and we all have to do more as a community to make sure that those treatments are offered to everyone. But until that day comes, I think patients also need to feel empowered to ask for other treatments and other opinions. 


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What Do Lung Cancer Patients Need to Know to Build a Treatment Plan?

What Do Lung Cancer Patients Need to Know to Build a Treatment Plan? from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

What do lung cancer patients need to know about treatment options? Expert Dr. Lecia Sequist shares an overview of treatment classes for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC), advice for patients, and how each treatment class works against cancer.

Dr. Sequist is program director of Cancer Early Detection & Diagnostics at Massachusetts General Hospital and also The Landry Family Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

[ACT]IVATION TIP:

“…ask your doctor if immune therapy, targeted therapy, or chemotherapy are appropriate for your cancer. And if not, why not? There’s probably a good reason if they’re not recommending one of those things. But just make sure that you understand why you’re getting the treatment recommendation that you are.”

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Related Resources:

Confusion to Clarity: Expert Explains the Importance of NSCLC Mutations

Confusion to Clarity: Expert Explains the Importance of NSCLC Mutations

Can Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Help Advance Screening for Lung Cancer

Can Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning Help Advance Screening for Lung Cancer

Expert Advice for Lung Cancer Patients Considering a Clinical Trial

Expert Advice for Lung Cancer Patients Considering a Clinical Trial


Transcript:

Lisa Hatfield:

Okay. Dr. Sequist, what are the different treatment options for lung cancer?

Dr. Lecia Sequist: 

That’s a really important question. And there are so many treatment options. But I think a way that I often explain it to my patients is sort of thinking in broad strokes and categories. So one way to think of it is there’s three main types of doctors, types of specialists that treat lung cancer. And they each have their own type of treatment that they offer. So there are medical oncologists like myself, who give drugs or different medical treatments. Some of them come in pills, some of them come in intravenous infusions, but they’re all medications. Then there are radiation oncologists who give radiation, which is strong, but invisible X-ray beams that are focused at the cancer to try and kill the cancer cells that way. And then there are surgeons who, that’s some of the most, that’s the one that people usually can understand the easiest.

They’re going to cut out a cancer surgically. And so together, the surgeon, the radiation oncologist and the medical oncologist will work together to come up with the best treatment plan for each patient. Now within my field, which is medical oncology, again, we have lots of different types of medicines that we can give for lung cancer, but most of them fall into three main buckets or types. So one of them is traditional chemotherapy. Chemotherapy drugs, there’s a whole bunch in this bucket. There’s a lot of different chemotherapy drugs. But what they all have in common is that they’re trying to kill dividing cells. They’re counting on the fact that maybe the cancer cells in the body are dividing more often than the healthy cells. And so if it goes in there and kills all the dividing cells, you’re going to kill more cancer than healthy cells.

The second type of treatment that medical oncologists give lung cancer patients is targeted therapy. These are drugs that go after some kind of target or flag or marker on the cancer cell. So a lot of times the oncology team will want to test the cancer to see what markers exist, and then if they have a treatment that goes after those markers, that’s called targeted therapy where you’re giving someone a treatment because of the markers that are seen in their cancer. A lot of those markers are found in genetic testing, but some are found through other types of testing. And then the third bucket of cancer drug treatments is called immunotherapy. And these are treatments that are trying to convince the body’s own immune system to fight the cancer. We’re supposed to be fighting things that are foreign to our body, like infections or bacteria and cancers. But sometimes when a cancer is developed, it’s tricked the immune system into ignoring it.

And so what we try to do with immunotherapy is wake up the immune system, explain what the trick is and say, hey, this is the foreign thing that you’re supposed to go after and try and kill. And so depending on the type of cancer that someone has, where it is in their body, what markers are on the tumor, then your doctors can come up with what they think is the most aggressive or likely to work combination of radiation or chemo or drug treatments that might, that might include traditional chemotherapy or targeted therapy or immunotherapy.

So my activation tip for this question would be to ask your doctor if immune therapy, targeted therapy, or chemotherapy are appropriate for your cancer. And if not, why not? There’s probably a good reason if they’re not recommending one of those things. But just make sure that you understand why you’re getting the treatment recommendation that you are. 


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Lung Cancer Treatment Landscape Overview

Lung Cancer Treatment Landscape Overview from Patient Empowerment Network on Vimeo.

Lung cancer treatments have been rapidly expanding, so what are the current options? Expert Dr. Christian Rolfo from Mount Sinai outlines the lung cancer treatment landscape and which patients might benefit most from some treatments.

See More from Best Lung Cancer Care

Related Resource:

How Can Lung Cancer Disparities Be Addressed?

How Can Drug Resistance Impact Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer?

What Are the Latest Lung Cancer Treatment Updates?


Transcript:

Dr. Nicole Rochester: 

Now, let’s delve into this very important topic, how can I get the best lung cancer care? And, Dr. Rolfo, we’re going to start with an overview of the lung cancer treatment landscape. We know that this landscape is rapidly changing and keeping up with the pace of developments could be a challenge not only for doctors, but certainly for patients and family members, so I was hoping that you could give us an overview of the current lung cancer treatment landscape.

Dr. Christian Rolfo: 

In the last year, lung cancer treatment was changing radically. We have actually, including some of their new concepts as precision medicine or personalized medicine, that we have actually different therapies that are specifically for some group of patients, that they have specific alterations in their tumors.  And when I’m talking about alterations, I refer to mutations, genomic alterations that can be targeted nowadays with specific medications, and currently, some of them are actually, the majority of them are actually pills, for example. So it was changing radically, and we are not using it like before chemotherapy for everyone. Another area of important interest was the introduction of immunotherapy, this is also an important tool for fighting cancer. And there you have a substance that are administered generally, all of them are intravenous, and this is the principle of that is to await from your own inner system, from the patient immune system, they are the tools to fight against the cancer. 

So it’s a very innovative way to approach cancer, and this is…the good thing is that these two approaches targeted therapies, immunotherapy, and also still obviously the combination with chemotherapy in some of the case with immunotherapy, we can use not only metastatic patients, so in patients who have advanced disease, but also we can use in patients who have earlier stage that they were operated, for example, and we want to prevent that this patient is not going to a further process of cancer metastases, or there are several, several innovations. Then we have innovations that are coming also from local treatments and we call local treatments the one that, for example, surgery or radiation, we have new technologies also that are arriving there, and the combination sometimes with the medical treatment or systemic treatments that are going everywhere that is the description of systemic are helping these patients to have not recurrence and improving. Actually, lung cancer survival was really improving in the last years, and we are very excited by that because, unfortunately, it’s very still an aggressive disease that we were able to change with all this armamentarium the prognosis of these patients. 

Lung Procedures, Tests & Treatments

This resource was originally published by the American Lung Association here.

Depending on your symptoms and diagnosis, your doctor might recommend a lung test or procedure. Use the glossary or search field below to learn more about various procedures.

B

Bronchoscopy
Bronchoscopy is a technique used to look at your air passages with a small camera that is located at the end of a flexible tube.

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C

Chest Tube Procedure
A chest tube is a plastic tube that is used to drain fluid or air from the chest.

CT Scan
Cat scan or CT scan, is a diagnostic test that uses a series of computerized views taken from different angles to create detailed internal pictures of your body.

CT Scan-Guided Lung Biopsy
Radiologists use a CT scan-guided lung biopsy to guide a needle through the chest wall and into the lung nodule to obtain and examine tissue.

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E

Endobronchial Ultrasound (EBUS)
EBUS (endobronchial ultrasound) bronchoscopy is a procedure used to diagnose different types of lung disorders, including inflammation, infections or cancer.

Exhaled Nitric Oxide Test
An exhaled nitric oxide level test can help diagnose and manage asthma.

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L

Lobectomy
A lobectomy is a surgical procedure where an entire lobe of your lung is removed for a variety of reasons that may include a lung cancer diagnosis, infection, COPD or benign tumors.

Lung Function Tests
Lung function tests (or pulmonary function tests) include a variety of tests that check how well the lungs work.

Lung Transplant
Lung transplantation is a treatment option for some lung disease patients. A lung transplant is a very serious procedure and it is important to learn as much as you can about the process if you think it might be right for you.

Lung Volume Reduction Surgery
Lung volume reduction surgery (LVRS) is a procedure designed to help you breathe easier when your lungs have been damaged by severe COPD.

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M

Methacholine Challenge Test
Methacholine challenge test (also known as bronchoprovocation test) is performed to evaluate how “reactive” or “responsive” your lungs are to things in the environment.

Minimally Invasive Thoracic Surgery
Minimally invasive thoracic surgery is a way of performing surgery in the chest through small incisions, without making large cuts or incisions in the body, and does not require spreading apart of the ribs.

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O

Getting Started with Oxygen
Oxygen therapy may be an important part of your treatment if you have lung disease. Learn how to get started using oxygen therapy.

How Can Oxygen Help Me?
Oxygen therapy can help people with lung disease feel better and be more active. Learn about the ways oxygen therapy can help improve your quality of life.

Oxygen Delivery Devices and Accessories
Learn about the different types of home oxygen and the accessories you use for each.

Oxygen Therapy
Oxygen therapy is a treatment that provides you with supplemental oxygen.

Supporting Someone on Oxygen
It can be a big adjustment for someone to start using oxygen therapy. The support of a friend or loved one can make the transition much easier. Read what real patients and caregivers have to say about supporting someone on oxygen.

Traveling with Oxygen
It may take more planning, but many people successfully travel while using oxygen therapy. Learn some key points to consider before you travel with oxygen.

Using Oxygen at Home
It is easy to get started using oxygen therapy at home. Make sure you read the instructions from your oxygen company and then follow these steps to get started.

Using Oxygen Safely
Oxygen therapy can be an important part of treatment for people living with lung disease. It is important to learn how to use oxygen therapy safely so you can protect yourself and those around you from harm.

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P

Pulse Oximetry
The pulse oximeter, or Pulse Ox, is an electronic device that measures the saturation of oxygen carried in your red blood cells.

The Basics of Pulmonary Rehabilitation
Pulmonary rehabilitation (PR/Rehab) can help people with chronic lung disease improve lung function, reduce symptoms and improve quality of life through exercise and education.

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S

Six-Minute Walk Test
The six-minute walk test is used as a simple measure of aerobic exercise capacity.

Spirometry
Spirometry is the most common type of pulmonary function or breathing test that measures how much air you can breathe in and out of your lungs.

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T

Thoracotomy
A thoracotomy is a surgical procedure in which a cut is made between the ribs to see and reach the lungs or other organs in the chest or thorax.